


Watershed

by Lisa Martin (LisaM)



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:14:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26448379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LisaM/pseuds/Lisa%20Martin
Summary: Companion piece to 'Hope'.
Relationships: Xander Harris/Spike
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5





	Watershed

Thought I knew my mind like the back of my hand,  
The gold and the rainbow, but nothing panned out as I planned.

The park is quiet, no playing children, no mothers chasing after them, no lovers trying to sneak behind the bushes. This is the hour of silence, the hour when no one is around, not even the most daring kind.  
I smile, letting my gaze wander over the grounds. In a way it is funny I picked this place to contemplate my existence. It’s Xander’s spot, the place he fled to when things got too rough. I found him here more times than I could count. Maybe it all makes a twisted kind of sense.  
My smile fades as my thoughts return to the night before. Coming home from yet another battle against evil, I won the battle to take the first shower. It’s an ongoing contest we have; I usually win, but he never gives up. After my shower I went up to the roof, knowing he’d be there, looking forward to being held by him. Maybe I’ve become a poof, I don’t know and I don’t really care. I love these quiet moments with him, where words are elusive, where time seems to stand still. No pressure, just existing.  
Last night it was different, I noticed it the second I saw him. He always smiles when he sees me, but his smile held a brightness I’d never seen before. Then he leaned into me, instead of the other way around. That gesture was so not so unusual, he does that more often, but only while we’re watching TV. And then the clincher. That soft voice telling me he loved me.  
My life has taken many strange turns. From a good for nothing poet to a vampire. Biggest change of them all? Not really. It took me some time to adapt, but when I did, I relished every second of it. I was a cruel, vicious vampire and I loved it. Nothing, no one, stood in my way, and the ones who did, didn’t live to tell the tale.  
The real earth shattering change came when I had the glorious idea to come to this town. Plan was to get Angel to cure Dru, create a little havoc and then move on again. Maybe even kill my third Slayer. From the moment I ran over the Sunnydale sign with my car, things started to go downhill. Dru got cured, but that was about the only thing that went according to plan.  
When we left, I thought it was all over. Leave it behind me and never look back. Fate probably had some axe to grind with me, because no matter how hard I tried to avoid this bloody town, I always ended up here again.  
Made a right fool of myself the second time I came here. Blubbering over Dru’s leaving like some love sick puppy. And again, when I left I thought that was it.  
Why I came back again, I don’t know, my feet just led me here. One hour into the visit I was a prisoner of that demented witch Maggie Walsh. What happened in that lab of doom I have forgotten, my mind has blocked it out. The consequences I still live with.  
Asking for help is difficult for me, but I had no other choice. It was either that or starve. Pride took a back seat as I threw myself at the mercy of my arch enemies. It was then I started to notice the boy.  
His unrelenting insults worked better than those taser guns. They made me mad. Furious. And reminded me more than anything else of what a pathetic tosser I’d become. Finding out I was able to fight demons perked me up for a while, but it didn’t last long. Have to admit, still like killing demons. Most of them are so stupid, they weren’t meant to exist anyway.  
Had I hit rock bottom? Forget it. I was only halfway down the slope. If fighting alongside the Slayer wasn’t bad enough for someone with my reputation, I had to go and fall for her. Wrote poetry for her (thank God, she never saw it), followed her around like a puppy, even told her what a ponce I was before I was turned. Nothing worked, but I never lost hope.  
I bury my head in my hands. What an idiot I was. To think she would ever have feelings for me. Feelings that went beyond ‘Spike, I need information, now!’.  
Still, I got her in my bed. Well, on the floor of an abandoned building, but I got her. It was rough, passionate and completely twisted. I loved it. Didn’t stop and think about wrong it was. Deep down, I knew she was using me, but I couldn’t care less. I had what I wanted, period.  
It ended. She came to her senses. I didn’t. I made one last attempt to win her for me.  
Images assault me and I cringe. How could I do this? Desperation? Sure, but that’s hardly an excuse. I have no excuse. What I did to her was so wrong, even then I knew that. The demon couldn’t cope with the guilt and nearly went insane.  
That’s when I hit rock bottom. Went to Africa and got my soul back. For her. And she couldn’t care less. Left me in that stinking basement for weeks, only came down when she needed help. Oh, she pretended to care, but the voices told me otherwise. One of the many things they told me, one of the many, many things. I suffered, but I deserved it.  
I still suffer, although it’s become less over the months. The voices don’t haunt me that much anymore, and when they do, there’s someone I can turn to. I don’t always lean on him, sometimes I let the accusations carry me away. I need the suffering, it’s cleansing.  
Torture for what I did, for what I was, I expected. Nightmares, constant reminders of the beast I’d been, hostility, all that and more. Yet, he has found the cruellest torture of them all.  
He loves me. 

Stepping on a crack, breaking up and looking back  
Every tree limb overhead just seems to sit and wait  
Until every step you take becomes a twist of fate

Love has been my achilles heel for the whole of my existence. These days it could, and it will, destroy me. The soul is still too fragile to accept it, yet it needs it. I have taken every crumb of kindness he has given me, little patches of peace in the Hellmouth that is my mind.  
His declaration had the demon in me howling in anguish, it doesn't want to surrender, doesn't want to believe he really cares. Pity, it hissed, it's just pity. I let it take over, my first line of defense. He wasn't impressed, saw right through me. Ripped away that mask with an ease that had me reeling.  
His attraction to the dark side was not a surprise. I see it every time his 'friends' put him down again, a tinge of darkness in those eyes. I never thought about siring a Childe before, but with him I was sorely tempted. He would've been magnificent. Why haven't done it? I could blame the chip, but that would be deceiving myself.  
Buffy. That bloody Slayer crept under my skin and made me forget everything I had planned for the whelp. Hell, she made me forget everthing except her. Obsession was an understatement. When I went to get my soul, telling myself that it would win her back, deep down I already knew it was useless. Yet, I went ahead with it. It was inevitable.  
He understands why. He doesn't tell me in words, I can see it in his eyes. Another crumb of peace. He sits there, pouring his heart out and all I can do is resist.  
Giving in would be so easy, just let him love me the way he wants to. He will take all the crap I throw at him and still hang on. Wait. My thoughts screeched to a halt then, leaving skid marks in my brain.  
The small smile he sent me told me he is doing just that. Hanging on. He will stand by me through hell and high water. Will grab my hand when needed.  
“Stay.” That soft spoken question is my undoing and my sole reason for facing another day.  
“Promise.” 

“Watershed” by the Indigo Girls  
From the album “Nomads, Indians, Saints”.


End file.
